I picked this book up from one of those tables of heavy-hitters (or top-sellers, or recommendations) in Waterstones. It was in the Science Fiction section and the blurb interested me. I expected a novel about space exploration and colonisation. What I got was a novel about six teenagers who should never have been thrust together on a spaceship and the squabbles, fights, bullying and general nastiness that led them to, after a disaster, (sort of) pulling together. 

I liked that the story was set in "our" time - in fact a few years before publication - in a world where space exploration was further along than we have managed, and that it was set, at least while Earthbound, in the UK, with a very diverse cast of characters. I just didn't like those characters, or the fact that it was never really explained why this world differed from ours so radically while staying so very similar in terms of pop culture. 

And who exactly was running this program? Of the ten people who set off on the voyage, maybe one of them should have been there. There was some vague hand-waving towards the end of the book - during a sequence which should have felt dangerous but actually felt dull (and whose "<time> to rescue" headings seemed to jump all over the place), which suggested that the six had been under some sort of experiment but, to me, it felt like the author was desperately trying to figure a way if salvaging the book as a deadline hit. 

Some good ideas, but not fully fleshed out. Some bad (I think - it's a long time since I did physics) science - would a lighter shuttle really take less time to travel the required distance in a vacuum? And an ending that begs for a sequel, but one I'm unlikely to read. 

Waterstones - this should probably have been in the young adult section.